By
members of the Critical Issues Committee, Geological Society of America

Part VIII

WE ARE A PART OF, NOT APART FROM,
THE GLOBAL ECOSYSTEM

A. R. Palmer, Institute of Cambrian Studies, Boulder,
CO

Photo courtesy of early pioneer with a sample of
alfalfa copyright by Denver Public Library.
See BASIN Gallery.

"Humans aren't the only species on Earth, they
just act like it"

Prior to the agricultural revolution (about 10,000
years ago), humans had lived off the land for perhaps hundreds
of millennia. Survival depended on knowledge of local ecosystems
for hunting, food gathering, medical assistance and shelter. The
passage of time was measured by natural seasonal cycles; the rhythm
of life was the rhythm of the seasons. We were an integral and
integrated part of the global ecosystem.

With the invention of agriculture and accompanying technological
innovations, villages and finally cities developed, artisans appeared,
and social structures and communications became more elaborate. Exploitation
of natural resources for enrichment of the human enterprise became a
part of the more urbanized cultures. There seemed to be no limits to
those resources. The creative human mind and the advent of commerce
found increasingly more sophisticated ways to obtain the resources and
to use them. Thus, today, although we are still integral parts of the
system, we are less integrated. We are somewhat analogous to the exotic
species that disrupts the ecosystems into which it is introduced.

One of the tragic and unintended consequences of the
exponential increase (Part III)
in urbanization, particularly in the
past century, has been the increasing isolation of human beings from
the natural rhythms and conditions that both nurture and constrain them.
This is especially true in the so-called developed world where, aided
by the ease and rapidity of transport of goods, our city markets have
fresh vegetables, fruits, milk and meat more or less continuously available.
There is very little understanding among consumers of the unique combinations
of soil, water, weather and climate that determine the seasons of harvest
for the fruits and vegetables we enjoy directly, or of the processes
which make it possible to bring meat and milk to our tables. There seems
to be even less understanding of the complex interaction among elements
of the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere that sustain populations
of fish in our oceans and lakes.

Many of us are far removed from our heritage as peoples
of the land. As a consequence, we are dependent on specialized technology,
skilled artisans, global commerce, and large-scale exploitation of the
commons (Part I
) for food, shelter, and clothing. Most of us have lost
the personal knowledge needed to do even simple farming. That loss may
come back to haunt us because large cities are the most vulnerable human
habitats in a sustainable future. We, or our families, may have to learn
again how to plant, nurture, harvest and hunt. We may have to re-learn
how to live with the seasons and in balance with our surroundings.

The geological sciences have taught us that we live in
a universe of change. This lesson is embodied in a beautiful paraphrase
of a verse from the Qur'an (Sura 27; Aya 88), "In the presence of eternity,
the mountains are as transient as the clouds". Geologic studies of the
environmental record since the last deglaciation (about 13,000 years
ago) show that this change includes global ecosystems (e.g. Ruddiman
and Wright, 1987). Nature is quite dynamic and interactive. We need
to understand that the complex of systems that makes up our present-day
environment has never been steady-state.

Increasingly sophisticated biological studies demonstrate
that all organisms share some common elements, if only at the genetic
level. Although we humans seem to feel and act as if we are distinct
from all other organisms in the web of life, this is not really the
case. If we look back in geologic time (
Part II), our self-determined
uniqueness within the web blurs. This blur involves not only our biological
relations to other organisms, but also the cultural development of our
human species. We are truly a fundamental part of the global ecosystem.

The western cultural attitude that nature is to be "tamed"
and that the environment is somehow an adversary is one of the roots
of our conflicted response to the issue of sustainability (Berry, 1999).
Once we come to terms with the imbalance we have created in the global
ecosystem by failing to remember that our context is WITHIN that ecosystem,
we can face the challenges of sustainability creatively.

References Cited

Berry, Thomas, 1999, The Great Work: our way into the
future: New York, Bell Tower, 242 p.

DEMONSTRATION 1. - Ask your class to discuss what knowledge
they might need if they had to become personally responsible for their
food, clothing and shelter and live in the countryside. If your community
is already rural, ask the students what foods and other material goods
they feel are essential to their lifestyle. How many of these can be
obtained locally?

DEMONSTRATION 2. - Have the students determine the optimum
size for a sustainable city in the region where you live, in terms of
a variety of variables such as the true cost of energy required for
transportation of goods and services, the distance between producers
of food and clothing and the consumers, and the number of people required
to provide for the basic needs of a single individual resident of the
city..

DEMONSTRATION 3. - How has the natural landscape in your
vicinity been modified by human activity? How has this helped or hindered
your possibilities for a sustainable future? What actions can you take
locally to ensure such a future?

INVITATION
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